#is you ARE looking for more recent/less mainstream books that i take a lot of my writing cues from

[yandere-daydreams]

Were you someone who was or is fond of reading books, growing up ? Because you're so excellent at writing. Like, nowadays its so difficult to find any book with half the narrative structure or interest your writing has. Feels like you were someone who liked hunger games at some point.

no yeah you read me and my preteen hunger games obsession like a book T-T admittedly tho, i am kind of currently in a reading slump not for lack of trying, but just because,,, i feel like a lot of recent horror/thriller/mystery stuff has been kind of preachy, lately? idk how to explain it, but i feel like darker genres feel the need to come with some greater life lesson they can serve up to the reader on a silver platter within the first hundred pages which very much goes against my 'tell your silly little story and i'll decide how it's changed me as a person later' mentality to fiction. i will resist the temptation and forgo posting a detailed list of all the books that have been added to my DNF list in the past month and their many issues but know that it is exhaustive.

#is you ARE looking for more recent/less mainstream books that i take a lot of my writing cues from #i could not recommend the author darcy coates highly enough #specifical her survival horror stuff #even MORE specifically Hunted and Dead of Winter #maybe even Craven Manor if you're good with a supernatural element #or fuck it #go back to the classics #read rosemary's baby #there's a sex scene that involves both first lady jackie kennedy and the devil (from the bible) #and that's what it takes to be REAL literature #personal #anon ask

[creekfiend]

I saw your post about reading fanfiction and I love it so much. My enjoyment of fanfiction doesn't challenge my availability to like understand Shakespeare. But, I know my enjoyment of fanfiction is because a.) It's Fun, b.) It's Comforting and I Feel Seen, and C.) It's Accessible.

I had a good high school education as in I went to a tuition free private school. It's easily the best high school in my area and some parents explained it as "An A in a public school here is just a C at this private school." It was common for straight A public school children to /fail/ our enterance exams. So, I know I'm very privileged to have this education where even middle of the pack was better than being left to the wilds of our county system.

I also know that I grew up poor and my grandmother hated buying me books. She saw them as a single use item even if I excitedly reread everything I owned. It was very rare for me to get new books of my own. I scavenged for free or someone gave them to me as a gift. You know what was free and readily available at this time? Fanfiction.

Now, I'm dealing with debilitated mental health where I rarely have enough spoons to do more than get out of bed, eat simple foods, and shower. Sometimes I have really great days! Other times, I have worse days.

Fanfiction is readily available on my phone, doesn't take as much mental energy, and isn't frightening because it's not an entirely new series. It's more like interacting with a new series in the same universe. I'm not having to forge new bonds with brand new characters or hope a series pans out even if the reviews looked good.

Writing fanfiction is also a hobby of mine. It brings me great joy. To solve the puzzles to fit in what I want to happen. Or, I connect little details I discovered and want to use.

As a reader and writer, it also gives me a chance to explore my own identities? My sexual and romantic orientations, gender, and polyam natures can appear in my favorite series now. They aren't being done in passing but have the chance to be fully explored in a way canon wouldn't really allow. It's fantastic.

It's also disheartening when people want to reduce a hobby that brings a lot of people joy down to "It's for the stupid masses." When that's not at all what's happening for majority of people? It's a free, enjoyable hobby that I watch person after person do as a passion project. This is just thing written from the heart with love.

💜

I think it has become cool to shit on fanfiction recently in a response to the navel gazing self satisfied posts that were going around a bit ago about how fanfic is REVOLUTIONARY and ANTICAPITALIST and NECESSARILY INVOLVES BEING PROGRESSIVE and engaging in Fandom is A RADICAL ACT, being in Fandom is a MARGINALIZED IDENTITY, etc

Which, yeah. Those takes were frustrating in a lot of ways and failed to address a lot of nuance. But I think the sheer *glee* with which a lot of people have jumped to going "THATS NOT TRUE AND ALSO YOUR HOBBY AND SUBCULTURE ARE BAD AND STUPID" is... not a flattering look for those people either. Lol

It's something that brings people a lot of joy. It's a hobby! It means a lot to a lot of people. And that doesn't mean it cant have issues just like any other hobby subculture (most of those issues mirror the issues present in Mainstream Society, though. Usually these are not brand new never before seen issues invented by Big Fanfiction. Lol)

I'm glad you have an activity that brings you joy and a space that you feel you fit into. That's important for people to have and I think we should be glad when people have that in their lives. It brings me joy that people have joy in their lives!!! It's hard to be an alive human!!! God bless stuff that makes it less hard for anyone

[frostyreturns]

Frosty Ruins The Lord Of The Rings (1978)

This will be my first time ever watching this version of Lord Of The Rings, I didn't even know it existed until fairly recently. So this review is based on total first impressions.

To start with it opens like an old film serial and looks kind of janky. You could tell it was from a time where a lot of people probably didn't even know what Lord Of The Rings was, back when it was a far less mainstream property, back in the days where Robert Plant could slip plot details from the book into a song and expect that nobody would really take notice.

I'm not sure if the opening is live action or is rotoscoped like parts of the rest of the movie but it looks like they just filmed actors but did them all in shadow so they didn't have to design quality costumes. The voice over is classic 70's and is vaguely the same as the opening of Jacksons Fellowship Of The Ring, which becomes a theme.

The movie differs from the books and the Peter Jackson movies because it puts the scene of Smeagle murdering for the ring in with the introduction. However you can also see that Jackson obviously took a lot of inspiration from this version rather than just using the books as source material.

You can also see the ways that Jackson made it better, there are elements of the storytelling that to me are missing in this version. For example in this version as the nature of the ring is being revealed by Gandalf, he knows coming in what the ring is and begins the conversation by saying it is evil. Whereas in the movie there was some additional tension added by Gandalfs uncertainty, and there was a bit of a fake out and a moment of false relief. There's also the way Frodo just casually slips in the line about wishing this wasn't happening in his time…but it hasn't yet been established just how dire the situation is so the line falls flat.

As the animated portion of the movie takes off, you kind of see also that originally the story was marketted more exclusively to kids. The art style is a lot more cartoonish than I would have guessed, it's like studio ghibli crossed with an 80's cartoon like He-man. The voice over also sounds cartooney and is done in that same 80's cartoon manner. While I don't enjoy it as much as the live action which to me was near perfect…it's not terrible. The character design isn't my favourite but the art style is still very good even though the realistic live action animation rotoscoping doesn't mesh well with the cartoonish simpler animation or look all that great, but it is interesting, very well composed. The backgrounds look like they would all make good paintings that I would frame and hang around the house. The movie looks like it's a product of its time so I can see there being a dedicated fanbase for this version but I can also see people saying it's cheesy and dorky.

Speaking of bad character design. I hate what they did to most every character especially Sam, they made him look and sound like a little effeminate homunculus. Saruman the white they for some reason depicted in a red cloak. The Nazgul looked less intimidating and more zombielike, they had the movement of lurchy hunchbacks that would have been reminiscent of old 30's horror movies. Aaragorn also looked so frumpy and plain, almost native american looking. Elrond looked so plain and looked more like Kevin Nealon than the animated Kevin Nealon from 8 Crazy Nights where he played the mayor. The orcs and trolls looked like smudgy incoherent blobs, the only reason you can tell it's supposed to be a creature is the glowing eyes. Even the balrog looked weird and less intimidating…and they didn't really build it up in the Moria scenes like the books and other movies do. Although one interesting thing about the characters is I thought the voice actor for Frodo was excellent and actually sounded a lot like Elijah Wood, to the point I wonder if that effected his casting at all.

There are moments compositionally that seem amateurish, for example they introduce Merry And Pippin by having them simply walking behind the main characters without introduction, and then they threw in dialogue about them agreeing to follow them as far as Bree…but the audio sounded different and it sounded like the voice actor rushed the line to make it fit into the scene before it changed. Seems like they made a last minute change because they had to cut the scene where they introduced the characters or because they realized they forgot to explain who they were. Then it cuts to a shot of them doing a weird little dance and then the scene changed again…very strange and makes the whole thing looks less professional.

One other complaint I have is that the visual depictions of magic use are not well done at all, and if I did not already know what was happening I would have no clue what I was looking at. The duel between Gandalf and Saruman was just flashing lights, and there was a prolonged scene with the black riders where the background kept shifting in and out and it looked like they were in the sky one second and on land the next. And they just held out their hands and Frodo just seemed to stand there watching them point at him for no reason at all. Knowing the story I know what is happening but without the context of the books or the Jackson movies this scene would have been very confusing.

The action is also underwhelming. The way they swing their swords makes them look like less effective weapons than a twig, they hit enemies with a sword like they're using a blunt object, it's hard to describe what I mean but it just looks wrong.

The other main issue I have with the movie is that because it squeezes the whole story into one two hour movie a lot is missing, a lot is glossed over and many of the scene changes seem abrupt. For example they talk about going through Lothlorien and then cut immediately to talking with Galadriel. The biggest problem with this version is that so much is missing. It's only half the story with Return Of The King completely missing because of a cancelled sequel. But even much of the parts they did show were greatly cut down and much was ommitted.

One thing i liked about this version is that they never really explain in the Jackson movies how Frodo kept gollum in line. The idea that he could threaten to use the ring to command him as a thrall was never in the movie but it was in the books. So for all my complaints I can't say it wasn't a faithful adaptation. It was an interesting one time watch and for parts of it I did enjoy it, it is still Lord Of The Rings so it can't be totally bad. I'd certainly rather watch this than anything Amazon shits out. Overall though it wasn't good and it's enjoyablity depends on how much you enjoy anachronistic cartoons about classic fantasy literature.

#lord of the rings #1978

[pebblysand]

🎉⏳!

🎉 What leads you to consider a fic a success?

wow. what a difficult and interesting one. thanks for asking! i think, for me, ultimately, i'll consider a fic a success if i can re-read it a year down the line and without cringing. that's my standard. it might sound pretty low, but if a year later i'm like, 'yeah, this makes sense and i like it/would read it,' then that's a huge success in my book. i get very critical of my own work sometimes, so to me, that's very valuable.

i know a lot of people might base their measure of success on some sort of metric (kudos, hits, etc.) but as i said on the pod a few weeks ago, being someone who started writing in really small fandoms where getting just one comment is already a huge win, i find it very hard to measure fic metrics on HP, because what others might perceive as "bad" or "not enough" already feels very huge to me. i will always remember when castles got twenty subs or something and i saw that and was super baffled, thought to myself: wow, that's more people than i could fit in my flat if we all wanted to have a party. i also think the fics that i like best are not necessarily the ones that get the most attention (hinny, for example, is mathematically more mainstream than, say, deamus or bill/fleur, so my hinny fics will always get more attention, regardless of their quality) so ultimately, metrics aren't something i pay attention to much. if i did, i suppose i'd be writing dramione soulmates au-s to appeal to the people, not super niche content about seamus finnigan haha.

i'm aware that it may sound a tad self-centered to only base my assessment of my success on my own feelings, for which i apologise, but i feel like the metrics i'm given aren't ones i feel are particularly relevant to anything. though, i will say, i did randomly notice recently that castles actually ranks quite high on the sub-genre of post-war, canon-compliant fics on ao3 in terms of kudos and bookmarks (just checked again, 26th for kudos, and 13th for bookmarks), which did make me quite happy. not life-changing happy, but it was a nice thing to find out, you know?

lastly, i think something that i also consider a success is if i get any comments where people tell me they liked it, or why they did. more specifically, if you've read my fics, you'll know that my work touches on a lot of very sensitive topics, such as ptsd, sexual assault, etc. when i get positive comments about these things, or sometimes very personal messages from people telling me writing about these things helped them cope with/understand their own realities better, that's honestly more than i could ever hope for. i can't even find words to describe that feeling. it's not success, it's something better. connecting with people and making people feel things is the reason why a lot of us write (certainly why i write), and when it works? it's the best feeling in the world.

but, tldr: i guess my measure of success is more based on subjective elements (e.g. my own assessment or individual comments from people telling they related to my stories) than any objective metric.

⌛ How long does it take you to write a fic, or a chapter?

this is hard to answer at the moment, but i'm hoping i'll have better data in a while as i've just recently started tracking my writing time to assess this more precisely. for anything in the 3,000/4,000 words range (or lower), you can generally assume i probably wrote those over a weekend, so maybe, idk, 12 hours? i tend to edit one-shots less than i do chapters/longer works, so even for longer one-shots like slipped, we're probably looking at maybe 20/30 hours?

for castles chapters (or something substantial like the fault in faulty manufacturing which is a one-shot, but over 27k) i would say, writing time itself is probably somewhere between 50 and 100 hours, depending on how much writer's block i get, lol. then editing, probably another hundred? so like, probably between 150 and 250 hours total. so, between 4 and 7 weeks at 40 hours a week, if this was my full-time job, which it's not.

is it worth it? honestly i don't know. is my content better than that of someone who doesn't even spend half this time? i also don't know. whenever i think about it, it makes me a bit depressed haha. but it is the way i function lol :/

thanks again for the questions ❤️. these are lovely

(and for everyone else who sent some in, i'll do them tomorrow and queue them up for the next few days 🥰)

#asked and answered

[olderthannetfic]

Any good recs for getting into western BL?

--

Jordan L. Hawk is one of my faves for how he dislikes alpha heroes, is staunchly pro-AO3, and generally has opinions I like and agree with. He also has multiple series, which I always appreciate. (Also a trans dude who came out recently if people are looking for that.) His main series are Hexworld (historical souldbondy witch/shapeshifting familiar), Whyborne & Griffin (historical Lovecraftian adventure novels), SPECTR (federal agent magic shenanigans).

Jordan Castillo Price's PsyCop was too woobie-ish for me at the start, but I loved the arc plot and a lot of the side characters, and I liked the lead more and more as it went along. I adore Price's very, very dumb, pun-filled gag series The ABCs of Spellcraft. A fast-talking twink and failed magician tries to get a job at a greeting card company and ends up in the middle of a conspiracy. To give you an idea of the tone, the villain tells his Russian enforcer to "take him outside and pound him". And magic is very literal and writing-based in this universe, so the twink is like "I have an idea..."

KJ Charles is one of the more famous and you'll see lots of recs. I'm a huge hater after formerly loving her stuff, both because she rags on people's dubcon kinks publicly way too often and because she keeps trying for diversity and flubbing it, then going and writing another book in her old style about two white people.

Cat Sebastian writes gay Regencies that sound exactly like mainstream het Regencies. (A number of authors have tried this, but I don't find that most of them nail the genre conventions and sound.)

Charlie Adhara's Big Bad Wolf series is about FBI partners working for the FBI department that deals with secret werewolf shit. The arc plot was developing interestingly last time I checked it out.

Hailey Turner's Soulbound series is another FBI + magic one. This one reads a lot like the Dresden Files or early Anita Blake.

E.J. Russell is a much less well known author but one whose work I love and whom I ran into at GRL (the industry conference). She writes series romance (in the 1 ship per book sense), which I'm not normally into, but hers keep growing an arc plot that runs between the books. Her connected stuff is set around Portland and is all topics like shenanigans at a supernatural dating agency or angry wetlands conservationist druids. (It's very, very Portland.) She seems to have just branched out into series mystery, which I'm excited about, though I haven't had time to read yet.

Meghan Maslow writes a super goofy alternate world fantasy series in the style of Robert Aspirin's Myth series. Think puns. Elf secret agents. Gnome mafia. The audiobooks of these taught me to like audiobooks.

I'm sure I have other recs... doh... I'm deep in a BTS fic reading phase at the moment. I'll have to look through my kindle for others, but I'm going to post this before tumblr eats it.

[the-himawari]

A3! 4th Anniversary Book [AIR] Translation - Q&A

This is the familiar Q&A project from the Anniversary Book series!

We asked about interesting points from the main and backstage stories.

*Please read disclaimer on blog

---

Q: What kind of school is Fuyou University, which Masumi and Madoka attend?

A: It’s a famous, private university with a standard score of 70 or above. It has affiliated hospitals and schools, and it has a strong image of being attended by well-known and wealthy people. Incidentally, Tsumugi and Tasuku are uni alumni, and Kazunari attended the attached junior high.

Q: Please tell us about Tenma and Hiro’s recent entertainment activities.

A: Tenma entered the top ranks of the popularity ranking in the youth category and his number of commercial jobs increased. As for Hiro, his offers from overseas began to increase, and he is currently training hard in English. It seems there are many voices calling out for a Tenma & Hiro tag-team, taking advantage of the opportunity from the Act-off and special drama where they co-starred together.

Q: Please tell us about the Japanese culture that’s mainstream in Zafra.

A: In addition to classic games, anime, and sushi, character mascots are also a famous genre. Rumour has it that a certain prince is preparing for a competition to create a mascot character for the king…

Q: Please tell us about the interactions between the first generation leaders and the new members, and also what changes they brought about that the dorm. A: It’s not that frequent, but it seems the adult group sometimes meets up and drinks together at Guy’s bar. Also, when they found out Syu was paying the dorm’s utility bills, some people began saving more than before, while on the other hand, some people were less reserved…

Q: What kind of shows can you watch at Zen’s show restaurant?

A: They’re mainly dance performances by dancers, but there are also magic shows and musical performances by jazz bands. He often pulls in many unknown, but excellent performers, and quite a few people have spread their wings from there.

Q: Please let us know how Azami feels after using the cosmetics he brought from Zafra.

A: “The eyeshadow was by far the best. The fine texture was soft, and most importantly, the pigmentation was top tier. There were lots of flashy colours, but I think there were also a bunch of subtle glitter and sheer shades that are surprisingly easy to use. I also feel like the primers ain’t bad. They’re rich in beauty treatment ingredients so they don’t damage your skin much and—(rest is omitted)”, is what he said.

Q: What type of work was “Robot Ranger” that Tasuku liked when he was young?

A: It is a science fiction work where the main character, who aims to be the best engineer in the universe, uses the transformation device he developed to fight against evil, extra-terrestrial monsters with his friends. Although it received high ratings from adults since the contents were quite elaborate, the amount of toys sold was somewhat lacking since children couldn’t keep up. It has a rather peculiar position within the series.

Q: Please tell us what kind of plays Syu usually performs?

A: Basically, the first part is a play, and the second part is a dance show. Many of the plays are historical plays based off of Kabukis. A singing show is also incorporated sometimes, so if you’re lucky, you might be able to hear Syu’s singing voice…?

Q: Please tell us if there were any settings that weren’t revealed for A7!, which was held for April Fool’s.

A: Actually, there are 4 animals: The hamster Kasumi, the cheetah Hiro, the black panther Zen, and the wolf Syu. They’re retired nowadays, so they rarely appear.

Q: Please tell us about the bar that Guy is running.

A: It’s still a shop that’s only well-know to those in the know, but it’s gaining popularity from office workers (both men and women) on their way home, as they feel soothed by Guy’s composed aura and slightly air-headed personality. Of course, the alcohol and food also have a good reputation.

Q: If Yuki and Kazunari have come up with nicknames for the first gen. leaders, please secretly let us know.

A: Kasumi was given the nicknames, “fairy tale uncle” and “Kasuminu” that he asked for himself. Kazunari seems to be thinking of nicknames for the other three but he says, “I’m still shrinking the distance between our hearts right now~”. Please anticipate Kazunari’s communication power.

Q: Stew was a standard on the menu for the first generation MANKAI Company, but what kind of stew did they have? Just like the current Company’s standard of curry, did they have a menu of different arrangements?

A: There were all kinds of stew like pumpkin stew, soymilk stew, corn stew, etc. that were served by Zen, but Yukio’s favourite was the classic cream stew. By the way, Yukio’s reaction when he said “stew” and was served beef stew is still a topic of conversation at drinking parties to this day.

Q: The number of Theatre members who have a driver’s license has increased, but has there been a change in their driving or shopping situations?

A: There hasn’t been a drastic change, but Banri gets called out to pick up and send his older sister, and Taichi seems to be steadily improving his driving skills by travelling to the neighbouring city’s supermarket sales during the evening when there’s not much traffic.

Q: The members held a training camp in Zafra as a cultural exchange, but please tell us if afterwards, there is a popular cultural trend, or Zafran words that the members use between them?

A: Zafran board games are still as popular as ever, and whenever a new product is released, they’re imported regularly and are highly sought after by the members. Also, since the Zafra training camp, seasonings made from kneading various chili peppers and spices with oil are popular too, and they are also sent over regularly from Zafra.

Q: The impression of Isuke when he just came to the dorm was told from Zen’s point-of-view, but please tell us about the first impression of Isuke from the other 3 leaders’ perspectives.

A: All of them unanimously thought, “he looks clumsy.”

---

#a3! #a3! translation #act! addict! actors!

[hillbillyoracle]

How Magic Works and Why It’s Important

I realized recently that some people may not understand the main underpinnings of how magic works across different paradigms. The psychological model is so widespread that much of Witchblr seems to think that it is the basis of all magic which brings them into conflict with folks who are working in fundamentally different systems. When the psychological model is taken as the only model, it leads to folks being disrespectful and then reactive when they're told as much. I really hate to keep seeing it happen like this so in an effort smooth out the dialog a little, I thought I'd let people know the lay of the land a little so people know what they're walking into.

Psychological Model

The psychological model posits that magic works by changing our inner world. Some people go so far as to call it a placebo effect. To be clear, this isn't to say that people who hold to a psychological model of magic believe it isn't real necessarily. It's more that that they tend to see the reality of magic is primarily cognitive.

This is quite a bit of mainstream Witchblr. It's also one of the most recent and modern and isn't rooted in many long standing traditions as far as I can tell. Spells for confidence or for self care. Astrology that's primarily focused on explaining your personality. The emphasis on intent alone as what manifests change. All of this is psychological and self oriented in nature.

Spirit Model

The spirit model is one of the oldest models I know of. There are a couple variations and I can't claim to know the finer points of them all. A lot of ceremonial and traditional witchcraft folks fall into this category. It mainly posits that magic works by getting spirits to carry out work for you.

Sometimes this is through offerings, pacts, or worship. Sometimes it's through binding. With many practices in between. Different systems often work with different spirits. Local dead, planetary spirits, angels, saints, spirits of the land - the spirit model posits that they are real and can act on the material and spiritual world.

Belief Model

The belief model posits that our belief in something makes it so. That's an oversimplification but at it's core, that's what it is.

It is distinct from the intent model. The intent model is built more on individual will that doesn't necessarily have a distinct belief accompanying it. This model also isn't psychological. People who use this model aren't saying well I believe it and it changes how I perceive things and that's how I make things work. No, this model says belief warps the fabric of the universe.

As you might have caught on, this is the basis that a lot of chaos magicians work from. Belief isn't simply a conviction in this model, gnosis is key. Gnosis is a type of single pointed concentration  or altered consciousness harnessed through various methods to essentially hack the source code of the universe. The belief model cannot be separated from the concept of gnosis in my book. It's foundational.

Why It Matters

While yes, it's definitely possible for these models to overlap and they aren't inherently incompatible, where I see so many people going sideways is when they assume everyone is working from a psychological model. This is especially bad because many folks are taking the aesthetics of magic born of the spirit or belief models and passing it off as if it is all psychological and then frustrated when those groups both point that out and say it won't work.

Sigil magic is a really good example of this. One thing I was completely stunned by when I came back to Tumblr was how many people believed that just inscribing a sigil on something would be sufficient for change. Sigils are found in both belief oriented systems and spirit oriented systems and how they work is so far beyond what is presented so often. So many writers here argue essentially "it works because I think this is how it should work" - which isn't how any other part of life works as far as I can tell and I don't know why magic would be different. This is where the idea that magic is in the mind conflicts so heavily with these other models.

This is related to the other issue I have with how wide spread the psychological model is it's aversion to proof and reproducibility which are highly valued in spirit and belief systems. I have not talked to any of people who've used sigils with the intent model successfully in a reproducible and externally verifiable way. I'm not saying they're not out there, like maybe it's possible.

But usually when I talk to folks about this, the conversation quickly devolves into validity. "But this is valid" people will say. The problem is each of these models have differing ideas of what valid is. A lot can be valid under the psychological model. But much less is valid in the other models. A wide scope of validity is great at making people feel better about themselves which makes sense for a model so focused on the self as the beginning and end of magic. But a narrow scope is much more effective for folks looking to reliably enact change in the physical world.

And this is such a difficult line to tread because so many people hear that and get defensive. This is where shadow work needs to come into play. People need to really be honest about what they're doing and where they fall in these groups. What are you willing to sacrifice to get what you want? How do you know your spells are working? What role does your ego/narrating self play into your perception of what's possible with magic?

Since I talk a lot about shadow work on this blog, let me leave you with this question in particular. Are you lowering your expectations of what's possible in magic to support your narrative that you are doing magic? I'm not shaming anyone with this. I absolutely was at one point in my life. And that was even after having direct experiences with possession and remote viewing. I lowered my expectation because I wanted to feel like I was good enough. I was good enough as a person, but that didn't make my magic effective. And I could hold both those truths at the same time. I really encourage folks to see what happens in their practice when they explore the same.

Know your model. Know the others. Focus on your craft and your aims.

That's what I try to do anyways.

#waking witchblr #witchblr #witch #magic #magic 101 #part of me writing this #is because I'm so tired #of watering down my information #to fit the psychological model #I work primarily with belief #secondarily with spirits #magic is undeniably real y'all #like I've predicted the dates of deaths y'all #whatever you think isn't possible to achieve #probably is #if you use the right method for the job

[eroticcannibal]

Common myths and misconceptions about home education

So in case anyone has somehow missed it, I have recently become a Big supporter of home education in a very lefty way, which has meant I have had to challenge a lot of views I have previously held about home education and that I know a lot of other lefties hold too. I am of the opinion that embracing home education, not as a last resort, but as the primary form of education for as many children as possible, is a vital part of achieving the required shifts in society needed to meet the goals of most leftists. So I am taking it on myself to convince you all that it is a very good thing, and also to clear up some misconceptions people have about home education that may make them feel they are unable to do it.

(A note, I am from the UK and shall be using UK terminology and specifics regarding law, policy and other such things will be from a UK perspective. I shall be using the term home education, as that is the legal term in the UK and is distinct from home schooling, which is the term for what school children have been doing during the pandemic.)

And I would also like to extend a quick thanks to Education Otherwise and the mods at Home education and your local authority for teaching me A LOT.

Have any questions about anything I’ve not covered here? Just let me know!

1. “Home education is illegal.”

- Sadly, home education is illegal or restricted to the point of inaccessibility in most of the world. From the research I have done, it seems that only the US and the UK have reasonable laws around home education (if I am using a very broad definition of reasonable, it is still not great). I do hope I can change this section soon, and I would *heavily* encourage people to campaign for the right to home educate post pandemic, perhaps cite any benefits learning at home has provided to children, perhaps???

2. “Home education is a tool used by religious fundamentalists to brainwash children!”

- This is a view many hold, and for good reason. For many of us, when we think of home education, we think of christian fundamentalists in the deep south of America, pulling their children out of school to avoid the liberal agenda. The truth is, anything can be used as a tool of indoctrination. This can happen in home education, and it can happen and has happened in schools too. In my own communities we have had instances of schools being a site of religious radicalization of children. The reality is this is far too complex and deep an issue to be solved by deeming any particular form of education as “bad”. I am not an expert on how best to deal with such issues, but I do feel that things like outreach and building a healthy community with otherwise more isolated religious groups would be a better way to address these issues.

3. “You need to have x qualification to home educate.”

- Again, a reasonable view to hold, given that state run and private education does require educators to hold certain qualifications, but in practice it quickly becomes evident the same does not necessarily have to apply with home education. Educational qualifications are very much focused on delivering an education in a classroom, which is a far cry from home education. During our home education of our child, my partner, who is a qualified SEN TA, has struggled far more than I have with educating our SEN child, despite the fact I hold no qualifications.

We live in amazing times when it comes to education. There are many things that parents and communities have to teach a child, and there are many things a child can teach to themself if given the tools to do so. You can even learn together! Their are endless resources available, books and games and documentaries, and even home education groups and private tutors if you feel that is the right fit for your child. You don’t need a piece of paper for your child to spend a day with their nose buried in a book, or to help the neighbor with his vegetable patch, or to cuddle up on the sofa while watching Planet Earth.

4. “You are required to follow the national curriculum.”

- This does vary by country (that allows home education). As a general rule, the stricter a country is about who can home educate, the stricter they are about what must be taught. In the UK, you are not required to follow the national curriculum. Education must be “efficient” and suited to the child’s “age, aptitude and ability”, and LAs do require that english and maths are covered. Other than that, you are allowed to tailor the content of education to the child and their interests. We have recently dropped geography for now and are only just picking up history again. It has also given us the freedom to focus on areas our child needs that would not be covered in mainstream education, such as anxiety management, trauma processing, self care and hygiene.

5. “Home education looks like school/is just filling out workbooks/etc”

- The thing you will always hear from experienced home educators when you begin home education is “home education doesn’t need to be school at home”. Much like you can tailor the content of the learning to the child, you can also tailor the delivery to the child. Some child need structure, timetable, instructions. Some need freedom and to bounce between topics. Some need to have an hour learning maths and only maths, some need to go dig up your garden “for science”. Some want to learn every day, some will need extended breaks.

Learning happens all the time, from the moment they wake to the moment they sleep. As an example, at home we have some workbooks, as both me and my child have ADHD and need someone to go “ok learn this” rather than us having to work out for ourselves what we need to cover for core subjects like english and maths. For the rest of most days my child is left to their own devices to binge youtube and netflix and work on their art. We try and go for a woodland walk every few days, where we have Deep Discussions about all kinds of topics, and we are also working on growing edible plants and baking cakes from around the world. We are more hands-off at the moment, due to the current bout of anxiety, but when that settles again we will get back to history themed crafts and STEM activities. Post-pandemic, we will be signing our kid up for swimming classes and “after school” clubs, and looking at sending them down to my mum for the home ed groups where she lives, like the forest school. A lot of home education outside of a pandemic is in groups and community based, or will make use of libraries and museums and other public learning opportunities. Frequently very little will happen at home.

In fact many home educators will advise new families to “deschool” for a while before jumping in to learning. This is a period where you “get school out of your system”, and just exist. Learning does not have to be intentional, you will be surprised how much you can achieve by just having fun.

6. “Home education is expensive.”

- It can be, ask my bank account. However, it is perfectly possible to deliver a quality education with little to no money. I’m not saying it’s easy, but it’s doable. Their are many online resources for free (check out oak academy), and libraries have plenty available too. Even paid resources can be very cheap if you know where to look. (psst, if your kid thrives with worksheets and powerpoints, get yourself a twinkl subscription, download everything you need for a year then cancel it.)

(This does not apply to exams. Get saving!)

7. “Home educated children are not properly socialised.”

- This is only really true during the pandemic. The rest of the time, home educated children are free to socialise whenever they want, with whoever they want, in whatever setting they choose. Socialisation while home educating is in the opinions of many of a higher quality, as they are not limited to groups of a similar age and background. Many home educating families form groups for their children to socialise together too. For ND children especially, socialising while home educated can be far less stressful and far more fulfilling than in school.

8. “Home educated children won’t get qualifications.”

- Just plain not true. Arranging qualifications can be costly and time consuming, but it is possible and regularly done. Some children may return to school or college to access exams for free, and I have heard of a handful of cases where individuals were able to secure prestigious university places without any qualifications. Home education also allows for more freedom with how exams and qualifications are approached, for example, many home educated children will pick one GCSE to focus on at a time, rather than covering numerous topics over 2 years and having exams for all of them at once like children in school will.

9. “Home education is a safeguarding risk/is used to cover up abuse/home educated children are not seen.”

- In the UK at least, home education is not considered a safeguarding risk, no matter what authorities may tell you, nor are home educated “not seen”. They still visit medical professionals, they still engage with their communities.

Now I shall add the relevant paper here should I find it again, but the idea that home education is used to cover up abuse to a statistically significant degree, or that home educated children are at more risk of abuse, is false. Home educating families do face a significantly higher risk of social services involvement than other families, but far less abuse is found in comparison to other families. It is also worth considering, when talking about social services involvement, that many families pursue home education due to failures by schools regarding a child’s vulnerabilities. In most cases, especially the Big Ones, where a home educated child is abused, the child was already known to authorities as a victim of abuse, therefore home educating did nothing to hide said abuse.

Children are also routinely abused in schools, which is another common reason for home educating.

10. “Home education has to be monitored or approved.”

- Depends on the country, I know in Japan home education is monitored by schools, however in the UK, monitoring is not lawful. Local authorities may make informal enquiries to ensure a suitable education is being facilitated (keep EVERYTHING in writing and please go straight to “home education and your local authority” group on FB for advice, you WILL need it!). In England, if your child is in mainstream education, you can deregister at will, from a special school will require LA approval. In Scotland deregistering requires LA approval. (Again, head to the aforementioned group for advice).

11. “You can’t work/get an education while home educating”

- It is hard to balance work, education and educating your child, but it is possible, people do it every day. Obviously, having at least one parent free to educate unhindered at all times is an ideal situation, but in the real world it often does not work that way. Parents may have to home educate regardless of their other commitments if a child truly needs to escape the school system. Many parents work or learn from home, and sometimes it is even possible to combine these activities with home education. Professional artists and crafters can pass down their skills while working, distance learners can invite their children to sit in on lectures. The really great thing about home education is it is flexible. Do you have a whole day of meetings? Let the kid play minecraft all day! Going to be in the office all day? Drop the kid off at the local forest school or something else they can do all day. Drop them with the grandparents to help with the gardening!

12. “Home educated are behind/achieve less than school children.”

- Their is no evidence that home education is of a lower quality than school education. Many children are home educated specifically because the school environment was detrimental to their education, and thrive with home education. Plenty of children are able to learn more simply by having 1-to-1 attention, without the distraction of an entire class. And others may well be “behind”, and are educated at home because of their specific needs that mean they will never thrive in an academic setting, so they are allowed to focus on learning skills that will allow them to live independently.

#word of god #home education

[fantasysamsclub]

so the adventure zone was recently picked up for an animated series.

hooray! good for the mcelroys. i’m glad they’re getting more mainstream. i’m glad they’re able to financially support themselves and their family with this fame. i’m glad taz has a chance to get new fans! i’m glad fans get to see some of the most iconic balance moments animated!

i also think it’s a monstrously bad idea.

(this is long and this may seem pretty mean and radical, but please read before fighting me on any of this. also this isn’t an attack on anyone that’s excited for any of this adaptation stuff! it’s good to be excited for this success. but also there are some things to consider.)

okay! so, up front: i think the taz animated series is a bad idea. i also think, retrospectively, the graphic novel was a bad idea. also i think the vox machina origins comic and animated series are bad ideas.

okay so this is going to get. a little long and rambly. but i’ll try to keep it organized.

1. TAZ Graphic Novel

now, when the first book was announced, i was excited! i’m still excited for the next one. aside from the blue/green elves thing, which i won’t ever forgive, carey’s doing a great job adapting this piece. i’ve met her before and she generally does know what she’s talking about, comics-wise, so i do think she was a very good choice to pick up the graphic novel

there are still problems! oh, are there problems. for example, i think everyone in the novel is characterized in a wildly different way than the original podcast. i can also get into this later if people want to hear about it, but! people have picked at that one before.

out of all the adaptations i’m going to talk about, this one is the best!

2. Vox Machina Origins

alright. context. i don’t know if i’ve said this on this platform before, but i’m a comic book artist (my big project is coming out this year, i’ll announce it on here, that’s not the point of this rant). and i bought the comic on a whim! it was a christmas present to me.

now, i know a lot of people read it and enjoyed it! and that’s great. i’m happy you got joy out of the book, really. i think every piece of art means something to someone, no matter its popularity or quality. and it did well, as far as i know! so that’s very good for CR and its fans. also i think pike is hot.

all that aside, the comic does suck very much.

i could go into a deep analysis of it (i CAN, if enough people actually want to see that?) but tldr: it’s rushed, both in production and story pacing. the character art is good! but you can see the shortcuts. the lettering is. awful. (that’s mostly a problem of modern comics in general though)

and i’m not blaming anyone at CR for these problems! really, if dark horse wants to pick up an adaptation, any writers from the original project should be heavily coached on how to write for a new medium. i’m not blaming matthew for that one! i know from firsthand experience that comic writing is different from anything else you will ever write, and is so difficult to get correct. as far as i knew, matt had never written for comics before! it would be really nice if he had some more resources to get this done right.

but that would cost money.

and that brings me to--

3. The Vox Machina Animated Series

wow! look at all that money everyone raised for this animated series. this animated series that the creators said they were raising money for so they could do it independently. hope they don’t go pitch it to a bigger company to do m--

and, it was sold to Amazon.

like, it didn’t even take them a month.

and in the current climate of how animation is bought and sold, i understand the need to sell it to a streaming service! you need a platform to let people view it, and youtube is in the shitter with its copyright stuff lately, so it makes sense to go private to keep your show safe. and then, you can maybe make more episodes after you run out of kickstarter money. i don’t hate that idea!

but amazon...hm.

it’s probably fine, right?

3.5. Wendy’s

haha remember when CR got sponsored by wendy’s and played their shitty rpg that wasn’t even balanced properly and then people called them out for it and then they donated all the money to a cause wendy’s hated to make up for it (good on them!) and then deleted the VOD off youtube? gosh, good times.

money makes people do strange things.

4. TAZ Animated Series

so, peacock has taz. sure! that works. it’s not the best company to pick this up, but it’s also not the worst. i’ll take that. i looked up the guy that’s slated to direct this and i don’t think he’s ever directed an animated show? which isn’t great, but that’s not what i’m worried about.

you know what i am worried about?

these big corporations don’t care if these adaptations are any good. they just want to cram as many iconic moments from your quirky, small-owned d&d podcasts to get you to give them money. for the mcelroys and the CR crew, it’s a passion project. to amazon and dark horse and NBC, it’s an investment.

you’re going to buy the book to see vax and vex bicker!

you’re going to tune in to watch magic brian!

you’re going to want to read pike meeting scanlan, of course!

you want to see “phantasmal and resplendent” animated!

here’s the other thing. when i see people talking about the animated series, this is exactly what they’re looking for.

“i want to watch merle dirty talk the plants on screen!”

“i want to see the taakitz date!”

“i want to see magnus do the julia scene...”

now, this mindset isn’t bad! no, if you’ve been thinking this, that’s okay! it’s really not my personal thought (i think adaptations are best when they DO change things in the story to better fit the new medium they’re going on) but it’s fine.

we might get tom arnold!

but you know what we’re not going to get?

we’re not going to get apologies and revisions when something goes wrong. we’re not going to get cute extra scenes because that would require more writing. we’re not going to get the same respect for the LGBTQ+ characters on screen. the people working on this show will not get paid what they’re worth.

we’re probably not going to get a trans actress for lup.

we’re probably going to see less of carey and killain.

we’re probably going to see even fewer black and brown characters than we already have.

why’s that?

because it’s a money project. they’re doing it for money. and they want to reach as wide of an audience as possible, right? “really, we need to cut back on this gay stuff so that straight people aren’t uncomfortable. we need to stay more moderate on this project so that more people will watch it!”

(that was sarcasm)

now, NBC has had some good shows! but that’s really the responsibility of their individual writers, and it’s usually in spite of the companies they work for, and not because of them.

once an author or an artist sells their project to a company for adaptation, they often lose all rights to input from it. i don’t know what the mcelroy’s or CR’s contracts are, but unless they have better lawyers than NBC or amazon.....they probably got shafted somehow.

it’s not a mcelroy product. it’s not a CR product. don’t pretend like it is.

you can enjoy it, but please be cautious. this is just a pile of money in a cheap taako costume. don’t trust it as much as you would the podcast.

tldr: individual creators are always going to make more genuine content than corporations that buy those creations for larger adaptations. it’s okay to enjoy these adaptations, but please be aware that it’s not going to have the same spirit or heart as the boys talking about masturbation on a filler show they did quickly so justin could go support his wife in labor.

#taz #the adventure zone #taz balance #taz animated

[rockinlibrarian]

Fic Writer Review

@pixiedane tagged everyone on this, and considering I've been wallowing in my sudden Being Into Fanfic lately (though to be honest I've been READING a lot lately more than writing), see this link, I figured I'd take her up on the challenge. You, too, may take ME up on the challenge if YOU have been writing fic!

how many works do you have on AO3? 19. That's much less than @pixiedane! I'm a baby fic writer!

what’s your total AO3 word count? 66,239

how many fandoms have you written for and what are they? There are technically seven listed, but "Marvel Cinematic Universe," "The Avengers (Marvel Movies)," "Captain America (Movies)," and "Agent Carter (TV)" all apply to the same fic, so really just 4. But that doesn't count fandoms I've written but not completed (and therefore posted) for. So there are more to come. Maybe. Sometime.

what are your top 5 fics by kudos? *

"On the End of Endgame," 51 kudos, because I'm right and Marvel doesn't understand their own time travel rules and 51 people KNOW it!

"The Puppy-Fly Effect," 39 kudos, because it's Back to the Future, the most mainstream property I've written for! So people see it and say, "oh, I've actually seen that one" and they're more likely to read it!

"The Invitation: an Epilogue," 22 kudos, which is pretty good since this is my newest fic on there. It's a Howl's Moving Castle (BOOK, PLEASE, OBVIOUSLY) epilogue, so considering it's not a RECENT thing it just keeps getting slow and steady readership. I myself have been reading a lot of Howl fic lately, and people are getting comments on their decade-old stories from me now, so I imagine this one also will slow and steadily keep accumulating hits and kudos.

"Kerry and the Meaning of Life," 20 kudos. I'm honestly not sure why this is, by far, my most kudoed Legion FX fic. It's the first one I ever wrote, and got me started on the whole writing-the-entire-Loudermilk-coming-of-age rabbit hole I fell into to begin with, but I've only improved over time, I think, but even after I'd posted other Loudermilk backstory I think is objectively better, this one still gets the most!

"Syd's (Third) Childhood Begins," 15 kudos, because when people finish watching Legion FX the NATURAL move is to seek out fix-it fic. I wouldn't say this is fix-it really as much as ensure-the-ending-is-actually-happy-it, but I did use the "fix-it" tag, and at least one of the commenters DID say they immediately came on AO3 "looking for pretty much exactly this"...

do you respond to comments, why or why not? Absolutely, because I know what it feels like NOT to get comments, and also what it feels like to-- I don't know, I just get paranoid, if people don't respond to me, I think stuff like "Did I say something wrong? Do they not care about my opinion? Am I invisible?" so I'm Do Unto Others-y about it, even if all I can think of to say is "Thank you!"

what’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending? Well, I haven't actually posted (read: finished) the ending yet, but it's definitely "Exploration of the Astral Plane," because that's just Legion FX canon. No spoilers, Oliver Bird starts out the show having gotten lost decades ago, and this is the story of HOW he got lost, and his friends didn't KNOW if they'd ever see him again, so the paragraphs I've written of the end do make me quite teary! The fic's really fun despite the canonically sad ending, though, honest!

do you write crossovers? if so what is the craziest one you’ve written? I have not written one YET, if I recall, unless you count the several mildly interconnected IPs involved in the Pipeweed Mafia Stories, which isn't even posted because I feel uncomfortable posting Real People fic online, but crossovers are fun and I really enjoy reading them, especially when the writer successfully blends things together while being true to the characters. Just today I read a hilarious one blending The Good Place and Harry Potter!

have you ever received hate on a fic? Gosh, this is such an ironic question. I wouldn't say that I WISH I received hate on a fic, but my fics aren't even NOTICED enough to receive hate! I already feel paranoid-- Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, you know how it is-- when I don't receive LIKE on a fic! It's LIKE receiving hate for me, because my brain goes into "Does nobody like it? Does nobody care? Are they all too nice to say it's terrible?" mode, so, yeah.

do you write smut? if so what kind? Absolutely not. My demisexual self hates reading it, definitely not writing it. I struggled enough writing just a taste of what a horny, slutty teenager who-talks-too-much Oliver Bird would have been in this AU, and that's mild!

have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I'm aware of. That would really suck, wouldn't it, if someone stole my work and ended up getting MORE LIKES AND COMMENTS THAN ME on it.

have you ever had a fic translated? Also not that I'm aware of, and if I'm not aware of it but it happened I guess that would answer the "stolen" question, too.

have you ever co-written a fic before? Ever in my entire life, I feel like I must have, but not anything I've posted online then

what’s your all time favorite ship? Hmm. Honestly, there are ships I defend passionately if the topic comes up, but I'm not sure I have a favorite just on my own. Especially as I hate smut, so I avoid seeking out specifically shipping stories. But, since I have been reading a lot of HMC fic lately, I should mention that Howl and Sophie ARE one of my absolute favorite fictional couples, but that's just how DWJ wrote them, and I can tell you unfortunately that not all fanfic writers QUITE nail that chemistry...

what’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will? Speaking of The Good Place, I really do wish I could write the novelization, and maybe I'd write some pieces of it longer than the few paragraphs I have written? But I doubt I ever will, let alone to the point of FINISHING...

what are your writing strengths? Fanfic wise, I like to THINK I understand the characters very well, at least! Writing in general? I think it's just my quirky voice? I'm the only me.

what are your writing weaknesses? Oh, very much FINISHING. But beyond that, it's pulling teeth to get me to fill out the story sometimes. I tend to draft with dialogue, and then I have to go back and fill in what's actually happening AROUND the dialogue, and sometimes I'd rather not.

what are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic? At first I was like, I don't KNOW any other languages well enough to do this! And then I remembered the Firefly fic I have mostly written but not completed yet, and you know how in the show their speech is peppered with random Mandarin phrases? My husband has the Firefly RPG book and there's an appendix of Mandarin phrases you might hear in the Firefly universe, and I DID incorporate a few of those phrases into my dialogue, just from that appendix and it's probably horrible, but it fit the universe...

what was the first fandom you wrote for? EVER? The earliest I'm sure about is the Ducktales fic I found in an old Girl Scout manual that I must have written when I was 11 or 12. The first fandom I ever posted on AO3, in response to an exchange, was Legion FX of course, but that wasn't until the ripe old age of 40.

what’s your favorite fic you’ve written? I'm going to give this one to "Two (or Three) Mutant Freaks Against the Fourth Grade" just because it has gotten the least number of hits of ANY of my posts, INCLUDING THE PLACEHOLDER WITH NO WORDS IN IT, so it needs more love. And it really is one of my favorites, because it's just a sweet little story about nerds making friends, and I love rereading it.

*This made me curious which fics got the most kudos comparative to their HITS, because the Endgame one has WHOA more hits than any other fic, but it's over a thousand, which doesn't make 51 kudos look so good anymore. Percentage-wise, it's less than 5%, which seems to be where most of my fics hit when you do the math-- between 4% and 8% kudos-to-hits. The exceptions, jumping up to about 18% each, are the BttF and HMC fics, and, curiously, my beloved childhood friend AU mentioned in the last question-- it may have the least number of HITS (22), but that helps the math when you consider it's got 4 kudos. The HIGHEST percentage kudos-to-hits is its sequel, the childhood-friends-as-teenagers-AU fic mentioned in question 5**-- it's got 6 kudos and only 29 hits, so that's about 20%! Apparently people LIKE when I have to write a sex-crazed adolescent boy. COME ON, people! (The story is actually about Asexuality so I guess it really isn't people just wishing I'd write smut).

**Oh, I just noticed the numbers renumbered themselves when I put bullet points in the middle of the original question 3 there, so this is actually the answer to question 8? But it SAYS FIVE.

[soundsof71]

Hey! Album: 'Fleetwood Mac' (1975) - Fleetwood Mac

Hey! Great to hear from you! You (and your previous blog) were my original inspiration for trying to raise my tumblr game to something intentionally curated, and more than that, personally creative. Sorry to have let you down. LOL

What a pleasure to talk about this one, though, an album I think is -- strangely enough -- one of the most underrated albums in the classic rock pantheon!

What’s that you say? An album with “Rhiannon” and “Landslide” underrated?!?! Well it’s true, seriously underrated, at least partly because those two stellar, nay, legendary songs are the first ones that most people think of. There's so much more! It's definitely my favorite Fleetwood Mac album!

My perspective is a little different than the standard rap that Fleetwood Mac didn't properly begin until those two California kids joined the band in 1975, because to me, they started taking off when their first American joined the band, Bob Welch in 1971 for Future Games, which I wrote about at some length here. 

(For the record, Future Games is my second favorite Fleetwood Mac album. Anyone who hasn't checked it out really needs to.)

I’ll leave it at that for now, except to observe that to most of my music nerd friends at the time, I was a latecomer to Fleetwood Mac the band, having completely missed their earlier, bluesier lineups. Indeed, the 1971 lineup was their 8th! And they'd come to #9 in 1972, before landing on lineup #10 in 1975.

They had a bunch of hits on the five albums in this 71-74 range (”Hypnotized” is one that still slays me) that I think hold up as among their best ever. While the album before Fleetwood Mac, Heroes Are Hard to Find didn’t have a hit single, it rose to #34 on the US charts, and got plenty of attention. 

My point is that Fleetwood Mac didn’t spring into existence out of nowhere in 1975. Nor was 1975 necessarily ground zero for the millions of people who bought the album Fleetwood Mac. It came out in the summer of ‘75, but took 15 months to hit #1 in the US! (It peaked at #11 in the UK.) This was a far bigger album in 1976 when all the singles came out, and the band was touring like crazy to support it.

They basically dragged the album to the top of the charts kicking and screaming by the end of THAT year with relentless touring, setting the stage for their true commercial breakthrough with Rumours in 1977, but artistically? I prefer everything about 1975′s Fleetwood Mac.

btw, the music nerds know that Fleetwood Mac was recorded at Sound City Studios, which makes all the difference in the telling of the tale. In 1974, the band had located to Los Angeles, and following the departure of Bob Welch in December, Mick Fleetwood went looking for both a recording studio and a guitarist. 

While getting to know producer Keith Olsen at Sound City (a studio legendary for its drum sound, among other things), Keith played Mick some tracks from an album he’d recorded here a couple of years earlier with a local guitarist and his girlfriend singer, both of whom were also songwriters.

Mick said, I’ll book the studio to record my next album, I’ll book you to produce, and I’ll hire the guitarist....who famously informed Mick that he and his girlfriend were a package deal. All of this happened because of Sound City Studios.

(Here's Mick recording this very album in this very studio.)

Your friend and mine Dave Grohl directed a FANTASTIC documentary about Sound City Studios, a kind of a dump to be honest, but where tons of phenomenal records were made, from After The Gold Rush to Caribou, Damn The Torpedoes, Nevermind, Rage Against The Machine, and most recently, Phoebe Bridgers’ Punisher. Lots and lots of stories about the making of Fleetwood Mac in this movie, and much more. 

Here’s the trailer. The whole movie is available on YT, too! And Amazon Prime, and a bunch of other places. HIGHLY recommended!

So here we go taking directly about Fleetwood Mac.....

the first song from the album i heard: "Over My Head". This was the first single released in the US, remarkably, four months after the album was released! I dunno, did the label not want to sell any albums? Or did they just not get how catchy these tunes were? I have no idea.

And ironically, the band didn't like the choice of "Over My Head" at all, ranking it dead-last in their own considerations of likely singles! I think that this is evidence that they were using heavy drugs much earlier than we thought. LOL

"Over My Head" peaked at #20 in the US, their highest to date by far, although, in some defense of the band's reservations, didn't chart at all in the UK. Saying that it rose to "only" 20 in the charts doesn't begin to describe how heavily it was played, though. A LOT.

do i own the album: Did then, Spotify now. The answer for most of the albums in this round of Asks. :-)

my favorite song: "Over My Head". Look, I admit that this is insane when Fleetwood Mac also includes "Landslide" and "Rhiannon." "Landslide" in particular is maybe one of the greatest songs anyone has ever written, and every single person reading this knows somebody named Rhiannon because of that song. (I've met two.) And hey, "Say You Love Me" was a MUCH bigger hit at the time too... but I'm tellin' ya, "Over My Head" fucks. 

It's the single version that fucks hardest, though, no doubt about it. I was disappointed when I finally bought the album that the version there fades in (NO! THIS IS WRONG) and has a wide mix that diffuses the impact. The radio version is so tight that it's practically mono, and it punches you right upside the head. 

One of my favorite things about listening to "Over My Head" in the past couple of weeks for this Ask is that it's Old School Fleetwood Mac. Chris on piano, Mick on drums, and John McVie with what might be the best bassline that anyone stroked out in 1975. My god, it's a fucking monster, and it just gets hotter as the song progresses. By the end, it's on fire, and you hear it so much better in this tight single mix.

The new guy adds a nice little solo on top of a nice rhythm lick, and he and Stevie add background vocals, but they're not front and center. "Over My Head" is really Christine McVie's showcase, although Fleetwood and Mac really shine too. This would have been a monster hit without the new kids, as indeed it pretty much was. You could say the same thing about "Say You Love Me", which is also all about Christine's songcraft, and a voice like no other, then or now.

Here's my edit of a lovely Mick Putland photo of Christine McVie from a couple of years earlier.

I guarantee that it's been way too long since you heard the in-your-face single version of "Over My Head". On Spotify, you can find it on the couple of Deluxe Editions of Fleetwood Mac (here's one), and it's also on the anthology, The Very Best of Fleetwood Mac, which I've embedded here. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw-lIt1ILzk

least favorite song: "I'm So Afraid." I'm so afraid not. LOL

a song I didn’t like at first, but now do: Hmm, I might put "Sugar Daddy" in that category, but honestly, the main thing I don't like about this song is the title. LOL But it's the 4th best Christine McVie song on an album where the best three of hers were all released as singles, so I guess it all works out.

a song I used to like, but now don’t: Anything by the new guy. I'm not going to go into detail here because what I love about this album, I still love. At the time, I dug two of his songs here (you can guess which two, surely), but I started to really despise this guy a few years later. Now, I can't listen to anything where he's prominent at all, on any Fleetwood Mac records.

Fortunately there are more than enough Christine and Stevie songs, and Mick and John's playing, plus all those earlier albums like Future Games, to keep Fleetwood Mac in the rock good pantheon. I'd have fired the new guy 30 years earlier than he was. 

favorite lyric:

Mirror in the sky

What is love?

Can the child within my heart rise above?

Can I sail through the changin' ocean tides?

Can I handle the seasons of my life?

Well, I've been afraid of changin'

'Cause I've built my life around you

But time makes you bolder

Even children get older

And I'm getting older too

Like I said, the two Stevie Nicks tracks on Fleetwood Mac deserve every bit of the love they've gotten over the years. You can also see with just a quick glance around my blog that she's one of my most-posted artists. Please don't take me repping Christine as any disrespect for Stevie!

Do I like "Landslide" a little more than I otherwise might because it's specifically about outgrowing the aforementioned new guy? Maybe.  Or do I like it a little less than I otherwise might because I can't hear it without thinking of him? Maybe that too.

overall rating out of 10: Then: 9.4. Now: 9. The new guy went 2-for-4 for my money at the time, and the two that he whiffed on are genuinely terrible...but as bad as those two clunkers were, the rest of the album seemed perfect to me. Certainly among my most-played mainstream rock records into the early 80s. I was perfectly fine skipping one song on each side.

Even though nowadays I can't stand any of the songs he sings lead on, you take those off, and you STILL have "Landslide", "Rhiannon", "Say You Love Me", "Over My Head", and "Warm Ways". No album with ALL THOSE on them gets less than an 8.5, right?

I'm adding a few tenths each for how tightly Fleetwood and Mac are locked into each other and these songs on rythm (easily the most underrated duo of the era, sez me), and Keith Olsen's immaculate production. The score of 9 is therefore objectively correct and mathematically unassailable. LOL

I'm going to end where I began, by talking about Christine McVie. Instead of listening to this first and foremost as an album with a couple of giant Stevie Nicks songs, listen again to Fleetwood Mac as Christine McVie really lighting things up. She deserves so much more credit for the band's success than she gets, and seriously, "Over My Head" fucks. 

Now looky here, @aluacrescente . I know that YOU have strong feelings about this record, so spill! And the rest of you, too! I don't intend to have the last word on the albums in any of these Asks! Just the first one. :-) So lemme know what YOU think!

PS. Apologies for any formatting weirdness! I started this on desktop, where I do all my writing, saved the first few paragraphs to come back to later, only to be told by tumblr that I'd stated this on the app (DID NOT) and could only edit there. Grrr. Not cool, @staff. I've spent another day just tweaking to make it somewhat readable and wondering how these people can be so bad at their jobs. LOL

My crackpot opinions and wobbly writing are my own of course, and I'm aware that they have a larger negative impact on readability than tumblr's incompetence by far. LOL

#aluacrescente #ask #Fleetwood Mac #christine mcvie #women in rock #stevie nicks #Landslide #over my head #john mcvie #dave grohl #sound city #youtube #essay #me #recording studio

[davidmann95]

Thoughts (if any) on DC's April 2021 solicitations?

Let’s take ‘em in order! I should be able to muster up a comment on just about everything one way or another.

Green Lantern #1: Oh this is gonna be bad. Heard only the worst about Thorne’s Future State: Green Lantern, and I assume Jo Mullein’s DCU debut will be wasted here to either function as some kind of ridiculous ‘popularity contest’ with Teen Lantern for who gets the bigger push, or as a way to put TL over with a few “good work kid, you got a future” comments. Also, and granted I don’t know how Morrison will end or this will begin, is the New Guardians angle being immediately dropped?

Robin #1: Dope suit, art, and premise, but it’s Williamson so I don’t care.

Batman: The Dark Knight #1: I’ll read this and I expect to like it, but between this being Kubert’s first big Batman project since Master Race, the ‘old but not quite retirement age yet’ angle, and the title, I’m concerned the shock ending here is that it’s actually a stealth DKR prequel.

The Next Batman: Second Son #1: So they really are committing here, though weird that this kinda makes Ridley’s Future State book basically a longform teaser for this. And I’ll get it as it comes out since it turns out this won’t be in that John Ridley’s Batman collection after all - sorry Dustin Nguyen, I love your stuff but I won’t buy an entire trade of material I otherwise already own just for one new story by you.

The Batman & Scooby Doo Mysteries #1: I got that whole great-looking Scooby Doo Team-Up run by Fisch for free on Comixology, I should read that sometime and see if this’ll be worth getting too as well, because it sounds like a hoot.

Challenge of the Super Sons #1: Glad people who want it are getting it, I do not care.

RWBY/Justice League #1: WILL BE GETTING A POST ALL ITS OWN

Action Comics #1030: His powers waning definitely won’t help the standard pre-run fuming by a lot of Superman fandom, but it’s an interesting pairing with PKJ apparently doing mainly cosmic Superman adventures so I’m curious where he’ll go with it. That it’s particularly cited as being tied to Death Metal might validate my suspicion that the new ‘everyone remembers their entire mainstream publishing histories’ thing will play into Johnson’s description of Clark really feeling his age at the start of the run. And Janin on covers even before he gets in on the book proper! And that Midnighter description!

Superman #30: This sounds like where Johnson’s gonna start with that worldbuilding he touted, and I’m curious; definitely reads in this instance like him shoving Clark and Jon into some swords-and-sorcery-esque territory he’s familiar with.

American Vampire 1976 #7: Not reading, don’t care.

Batman #107: I assume ‘the events at Arkham Asylum’ are the ‘A-Day’ ominously brought up in Future State solicits. Tynion Batman, Jimenez as the regular artist now, whatever the Unsanity Collective is, all entirely my shit. More importantly than any of that though, GHOSTMAKER BACKUPS. And drawn by Ricardo Lopez Ortiz, artist on Steve Orlando’s excellent The Pull! Dope!

Batman: Black & White #5: Any other issue and ‘Jamal Campbell doing a life story of Nightwing’ would probably be the highlight, but in case you somehow hadn’t heard Gillen/McKelvie are making their DC debut on a Batman vs. Riddler story here, absolutely wild.

Batman: Urban Legends #2: Even more excited for this now that I’m onboard for the Grifter and Outsiders stuff given how much those features pleasantly surprised me in Future State.

Batman/Superman #17: Injecting it isn’t enough anymore, I need to be on some kind of constant IV drip with this book. I was wondering whether it’d take the premise to further generational riffs or follow a history of mass-media Supermen and Batmen, but instead it’s veering off in a direction I never could have guessed and I couldn’t be more excited.

Batman vs. Ra’s Al Ghul #6: NOTHING CAN STOP THE ADAMSVERSE. NONE MAY DARE TRY.

Batman/Catwoman #5: Wondering how this Harley involvement plays in - I don’t imagine it’s quite what it seems given how King’s written her before. And love that Joker by Mann on the cover, major Clown at Midnight vibes.

Catwoman #30: No reason to assume this run won’t continue to rule.

Crime Syndicate #2: Dammit, I don’t think this book is going to be good, but I’m kinda tempted.

Detective Comics #1035: Wouldn’t be psyched, but Dark Detective was another pleasant surprise so I’ll give this a chance.

The Dreaming: Waking Hours #9: Again, not reading.

Far Sector #11: Sucks a little knowing we’ll never see that little ‘Young Animal’ label in the corner again after this wraps. At least it’s going out on its highest note.

The Flash #769: In a vacuum this would sound dope but I have less than no faith in this, and goddamn that’s a terrible cover.

Harley Quinn #2: I’m sure it’ll be fine, no interest.

The Joker #2: I wanna believe Tynion will be able to make this work, he keeps talking like he has more freedom on this than he has some other books, but everything about this reads like the price he has to pay for relative post-Joker War freedom on Batman.

Justice League #60: It’s Bendis/Marquez on Justice League, lots of people will complain but I’ll mostly dig it. More interested in Ram V briefly getting to write the main crew in the JLD backup.

Man-Bat #3: I’d ask why this exists - and as a matter of fact I still do - but checking out some of DC’s digital-first output recently I see Dave Wielgosz has something on the ball, so maybe he’ll be able to make this work? Perhaps I’ll check it out in trade someday if worth-of-mouth is on its side.

Nightwing #79: I maintain, this is gonna be huge. And clever move to make for how to justify Nightwing keeping up his standard way of business after Bruce loses most of his money.

Rorschach #7: A comic I will purchase and let’s continue leaving it at that.

Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? #109: DC’s highest-numbered comic (that hasn’t gone through an interim renumbering), astonishing. Not getting it myself, but respect.

Sensational Wonder Woman #2: Can’t say this sounds like my thing.

Suicide Squad #2: I’ve been swayed into checking out the Future State debut, but that’d have to really blow me away for me to follow into the main book.

Superman: Red & Blue #2: Sadly if unsurprisingly DC’s clearly not stacking this with AAA attention-grabbing names in the same way as this latest version of Batman: Black & White, but there do seem to be some interesting names from outside the usual big two roster here. And the main and Bolland cover may disappoint but holy cow that David Choe variant.

The Swamp Thing #2: I have no doubt it’ll be incredible but time and again I learn I simply don’t have it in me to care about Swamp Thing regardless of the objective quality of the effort put into him.

Sweet Tooth: The Return #6: Another one I’m not interested in.

Titans Academy #2: Oh lord so this is where they stuck Billy Batson.

Truth & Justice #3: I continue to have no idea what if anything the unifying idea of this anthology is supposed to be.

Wonder Woman #771: Wonder Woman as troubleshooter for mythological mishaps isn’t a permanently sustainable or desirable status quo but I’m down for it for as long as it lasts if it’s any good (though that Immortal Wonder Woman preview...concerned me, in spite of Jen Bartel’s jaw-dropping art).

So that’s 19-23 out of 37 I’ll be getting - if DC’s standard for success with Infinite Frontier is the proportion of their line people will be checking out, I guess it’s winning with me.

#DC Comics #DC: Infinite Frontier #Opinion

[sevenkittensinatrenchcoat]

Not The Worst Thing

This is a case of me seeing a post, wanting to respond to it, having too much to say, going off topic, and then deciding just to make my own post on the same subject instead.

A lot of shit goes into making a good musical. A lot of shit goes into making a good movie. A lot of shit goes into making a good adaptation.

In my own, personal, subjective, just how I react to things, opinion, Cats 2019 is a bad movie, a bad musical, and a bad adaptation. A lot of shit went wrong. But, I think some of the changes are misunderstood. Some are judged too harshly. Some fail to take into account just how flexible this show is.

So…

Is Cats 2019 Really The Worst Thing Ever?

Part 1: Not Actually a Problem

It’s Not Actually a Problem that they gave Cats a plot. The show already has a plot, it’s just very vague. It’s also not a problem that they added dialogue. Even the original London production added a bit of dialogue towards the end of the show’s run.

The movie was trying to go for an audience other than Cats fans. When something has a fandom, and a new book/movie/show whatever makes changes to appeal to people outside of the fandom, the fandom gets mad. Modern fans are honestly used to being pandered to. Mainstream movies now have a lot of continuity and and extended universe, something that encourages fandom excitement, but can alienate new viewers. It used to be that creators kind of hated fandoms and would deliberately go against their wishes. Capitalism decided fandom was profitable and that changed. So, when Cats 2019 went in the old-fashioned direction of “change things to appeal to a broad demographic”, the fandom couldn’t handle it.

Of course, the mainstream demographic liked the movie even less than the fandom did, so it didn’t work, but my point still stands.

Most of the changes Cats 2019 aren’t exactly new. They’re more blatant than in other versions, but they didn’t come from nowhere. The Tecklenburg non-replica put more emphasis on a clear plot. It’s not the same plot Cats 2019 used, but Tecklenburg was very deliberately telling a story. Munkustrap was the protagonist with a coming-of-age arc. It’s the only production I’ve seen where I’d deem it necessary to stay through all of The Addressing of Cats, because that’s when Munkustrap’s arc is completed.

As for specific changes, most of plot points 2019 added were expanding upon previously existing ideas. The idea of Grizabella having a past with Macavity came from the 2016 Broadway Revival. Multiple actors from that cast have confirmed that as Grizabella’s backstory. Actors from productions before that have a different story, so this is a pretty recent development, but if you don’t like it, don’t blame the movie. The movie didn’t start it.

The idea of Victoria and Mistoffelees being a couple originated in Paris 1989, where Mistoffelees performed the erotic pas de deux with Victoria. There are no rules about which tom is involved in this dance, because it’s about Victoria. The pas de deux is a sequal to the White Cat Solo towards the beginning of show. Victoria is going through puberty, becoming aware of how her body is changing and her developing sexuality. In her solo, she’s exploring herself in private. In the pas de deux, she’s exploring her sexuality with A Boy. It doesn’t matter which, because the point is that Victoria is physically coming of age. Admetus is usually given the role in London-based productions because his actor doubles as Macavity. In the Macavity Fight, Macavity and Munkustrap throw each other around. Both have to be big and strong, strong enough to lift each other. Anyone who could lift a Munkustrap could easily lift Victoria, making the White Cat Lift look effortless. It’s convenient.

But, until recently, Admetus/Plato as Victoria’s dance partner was rarely seen outside of the UK. Even the London production didn’t always have Admetus in this role. When the show opened, Coricopat was paired with Victoria. On the night the show closed, Alonzo was paired with Victoria. The Broadway production started a trend of pairing Tumblebrutus with Victoria. He also has a coming of age arc in these productions. He was given the arc to match Victoria. Honestly, I think this was because an arc about a girl coming of age in a very physically sense where the male love interest doesn’t matter at all wasn’t something easily understood. Teenage boys get stories about developing sexuality, while teenage girls get First Romances. This got balanced out because seriously I need to write an entire essay on sexuality in Cats.

Anyway, Paris decided to switch the male coming of age arc paralleling Victoria’s from Tumblebrutus to Mistoffelees. This actually does make sense. Both Victoria and Misto are lead dancers. Dance is their focus. They are in the show to dance. So, pairing Victoria and Misto for a dance would mean putting the two best dancers in the cast together and showing them off. It’s also a nice aesthetic, a black cat and a white cat contrasting. The Invitation already puts the two side-by-side for that reason. They’re already associated.

As for the coming of age arc, this is where we get Baby Misto Still Learning His Powers.

Personally, I’m not a big fan of Misto in the the pas de deux, for more than just Misto Is The Gay Cat reasons. Misto is described as small and in order to do an effortless lift, the guy’s gotta be a bit bigger. In practice, it’s actually not as much of a problem as it is in theory. Paris and Zurich were the two productions to pair Misto and Victoria and Zurich Misto still manages to be very Baby, to the point where he looks a little bit weird here. Paris Misto, though sort of Baby in personality, actually does look more like the toms Victoria is usually paired with, a bit taller and stronger than most Mistos. Whatever I think of the pas de deux, this two Mistos are among my favorites. Misto’s number in the Paris version really clearly demonstrates his arc and Zurich Misto is incredibly fun to watch and interesting to compare to other Mistos.

The problems with 2019 giving the show a plot and pairing Victoria and Misto are all problems of execution, not of concept.

Part 2: Other Things That Aren’t Really Problems, But I Have Slightly Less to Say About Them

The movie moves through multiple locations and actually shows the mice and bugs because that’s the sort of thing that always happens in movie musicals. Stage shows can get away with keeping everything in a single location, but it’s a lot harder for a movie to pull that off.

With the changes made to the characters, it makes sense that they used the original London version of Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer. London Mungo and Rumple is the only number other than Macavity’s to be definitely jazz. Both songs are meant to sound like villain songs with a darker tone. Broadway Mungo and Rumple was originally a puppet show Misto was putting on, so it was given a lighter and sillier vibe to match the change in context. When it was decided to have Jerrie and Teazer sing the Broadway number, this changed how the characters were interpreted. In the show’s plot, outside of a bit of troublemaking, Jerrie and Teazer don’t do anything malicious. Demeter mentions that Mungojerrie works for Macavity, but we never see that. So, Jerrie and Teazer are troublemakers, but they’re not really villains. If they’re not villains, do they really need a villain song? It made more sense to play up comic relief with the pair, since it was impossible to making them menacing.

Cats 2019 has Jerrie and Teazer actually working for Macavity. They’re sort of villains here, so the London version of their song is actually a better fit for the characters. I’m personally not a fan of that version’s melody. I like the jazzy tone, but so much of the melody is singing the same note over and over again that it takes a lot of work from the actors to keep the number from getting boring. But, that’s not 2019’s problem. This version of Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer predates all other versions.

Not all of the songs were performed badly. Most of the numbers weren’t great, but were passable, at the very least. Jellicle Songs was fine. Rum Tum Tugger kind of changed the genre, but it still sounds good and it’s not as big of a change as Rap Tugger. Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer, if you like the original version, is a decent performance of the original version. Skimbleshanks is great. All in all, the only numbers that were completely ruined were Gumbie Cat, Bustopher Jones, and Mister Mistoffelees. Everything else ranged from “okay” to “great”.

Part 3: Actual Problems

Since this ramble is more about things in Cats 2019 that aren’t god-awful, I’m gonna move over these in a list format:

1. Tom Hooper is not a good director for musicals. He seems to be trying to make them more realistic, which goes against how musicals work. Pretty much every problem with his version of Les Mis shows up in Cats, too. Les Mis has a more gritty, realistic setting, so he got away with it there, but it’s so out of place in Cats that no one could ignore it.

2. I can understand wanting to try new things with the characters, but Mistoffelees is a dancer. His number is designed to be a dance number. When you listen to the song without any visuals, you’ll notice that it’s very repetitive. The lyrics are simple and repetitive to avoid distracting from the choreography. Without it, the song becomes dull. I don’t mind 2019 Misto’s overall characterization, or even his romance with Victoria, but losing the dance loses the soul of the character. Even without the choreography, his number requires movement, something the movie couldn’t tried to make up for with special effects. Tecklenburg replaced most of the dance with acrobatic and contortionist tricks, but because there was still movement, the number still worked.

3. In order to make the tribe rejected Grizabella because she went off with Macavity fully work, Demeter’s role was heavily reduced, and Bombalurina, Mungojerrie, and Rumpleteazer were all made villains. Out of all of these, the only one that really doesn’t work beyond my personal preferences is Bombalurina. One of the things that makes Bomba interesting is that she’s NOT a villain. She’s red and black and wears a spiked collar, fitting a traditional villain aesthetic. She’s a female character with a deep voice. She’s a female character who’s shamelessly sexual and promiscuous. You’d expect her to be some sort of femme fatale, but she isn’t. She’s a good friend and loyal to her family. Bomba as a villain is a character we’ve seen a million times before. Bomba as a hero is rare.

4. The Gumbie Trio’s part doesn’t work well as a solo and Rebel Wilson was noticeably struggling with it.

5. James Corden

6. I don’t like that they cut Jemima, but they merged her with Victoria, which makes sense. Jellylorum was cut completely. Yes, I know, there are two named swings named Syllabub and Jellylorum, so they technically weren’t cut, but their roles were. The only way cutting Jellylorum could’ve worked was if her character merged with Jennyanydots. If they wanted to reduce the number of characters to make them easier to remember, fine, but Gus doesn’t feel quite right as a character when he performs his entire number alone.

7. Adding a protagonist might’ve been necessary, but 2019 Victoria doesn’t really work. If they needed an outsider to have things explained to them, Demeter would’ve been a better fit.

8. Beautiful Ghosts isn’t a bad song, but it’s not good for the story. Grizabella is the Jellicle Choice because she’s the one who needs it most. Memory is the song that tells us that. “All I have are my memories”. Beautiful Ghosts has Victoria say “Well at least you have memories!”, putting her is a position of being worse off than Grizabella, when the story requires Grizabella to be the worst off. They added the number to go for a Best Original Song.

9. You literally have “Macavity is a ginger cat” as a lyric and Macavity’s not ginger! Either change the lyric or change the character design to match. Also, in Memory “Touch me” is said after Victoria touches Grizabella, which makes it kind of pointless.

There are other small details I could go into, but I’d rather just leave it here.

tldr: Cats 2019’s problems are not the worst thing ever. Most of the problems weren’t the result of bad ideas, but of poor execution. The rest comes down to personal taste.

#cats 2019 #needlessly getting involved in drama

[repost-this-image]

All right Tumblr, let’s talk about art theft in PowerPoint format, because I’m hearing a lot of complaints, and some artists I know have literally stopped putting out art to the public because of rampant theft of their art.

[Transcription:  The story of art and art theft goes hand in hand with the history of copyright.  So why does that exist, anyway?  Whose genius idea was copyright law??

In the beginning there was no such thing as copyright. 

Books and artwork had to be carefully produced by hand.

Each new copy of a book took the same amount of time to produce, no matter how many copies you wanted, so there weren’t a lot of copies of books that weren’t religious text (like the Vedas or the Bible).

Because it took so long to write and bind a new copy of a book, an author’s livelihood wasn’t affected by other people making a copy.

Gutenberg changed everything

The invention of the movable-type printing press was HUGE, y’all.

You didn’t have to write really slowly to make each letter neat and legible; the type blocks were already made before you produced a book.

Once you’d set up a page, you could make as many exact copies of that page as you wanted, which meant you could print hundreds of copies of a book at a time.

Because it was easier to print a lot of books, you didn’t have to charge as much, so lots more people could afford to buy your books!

(Image of people using an early printing press with the caption, “These guys are printing 240 pages per hour.  So much faster than fancy handwriting!”)

There was just one problem...When it’s easy to publish and print lots of copies of your books, other people can also print lots of copies of your books.  And make money off them.  And if their copies are cheaper than yours, you lose sales, which means you don’t make money and could become a starving artist.  (Or author.  Whatever.)

But that’s not all.  That other printing house?  Doesn’t give nearly as much of a shit about your book as you do.  They’re printing out the bargain-basement version of your book, after all, so it doesn’t have to be as nice as your Super Official Version.  So they’re gonna make a lot more printing errors than the official copy that you originally ordered.

Oh, and if they don’t like the ending?  They could just fucking change it, and then people don’t know which ending is the real one that you wrote.

So in addition to not making that sweet, sweet sales money, your reputation takes a hit.  Ouch.

Copyright was the solution, but it wasn’t perfect.  On the one hand, an author got to choose which printers had the right to make copies of their books, and nobody else would get to print copies for 14 years after the original print date.  So you could control the quality and sales of your books, and actually make enough money to support you while you wrote a second book.

BUT without those cheap, shitty bootlegs, books got a bit more expensive again, so fewer of the unwashed masses could afford books.  It’s a tradeoff.

Why 14 years?  Because it was assumed that most of the people who were gonna buy your book, would buy it within that amount of time.  Sure, some people would buy it later than that, but not enough for you to really rely on those later sales.

Wait, only 14 years?

That’s right.  In 1710, when England and Scotland created the first copyright laws, your copyright expired after just 14 years.  Copyright law has been changed several times over the centuries to make that period last longer.

The most recent change to US copyright law, for instance, was the Sonny Bono law in 1996 (yes, that Sonny Bono).  This is why there were a lot of companies selling VHS tapes of popular cartoons before 1996, but when DVDs became mainstream a few years later, there were no DVD versions made--those cartoons had their copyright renewed right after the Sonny Bono Law passed, so it wasn’t legal for those other video producers to make and sell unlicensed copies of those cartoons anymore.

(Picture of VHS tapes with cheap, off-model images of Mighty Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, and Daffy Duck on the covers.)

That’s right, the tapes on this slide, that look like cheap bootlegs, were legally produced.  Because the old cartoons on them were, at that time, in the public domain. And they’re not anymore.

So what does this have to do with online art?

Copyright law still applies to art.  Yes, even if it’s made on a computer.  Yes, even if the artist chooses to post that art on the Internet.

Because the artist gets to choose how their art is distributed, an artist can say “Do not repost to other websites, and do not reblog without this caption,” and it is legally binding.

If an artist wants to sell prints of their own art, they can legally do that.  But you can’t sell or distribute prints (or digital copies!) of their art without their express permission.

Because we currently live in a capitalistic society, artists need to make money off of their art in order to be able to produce art full-time.  If they can’t make money off of it (say, because some asshole is off posting hi-res copies of it on other websites without permission and without giving the artist credit), then they have to get another job and don’t have as much time to produce art.  Which means you get less art.

Small-time artists aren’t like major corporations.  When you make a bootleg of a Disney Movie, or Disney’s promotional art (for legal reasons, I wish to point out that you should not do this because it’s illegal and Disney can and will sue you into the poorhouse), you’re preventing a massive, multinational corporation (which has unethically devoured hundreds of other corporations, btw), with already earns billions of dollars in profits every year, from making $20.  That’s a drop in the bucket.

But when you make illegal copies of a small-time artist’s art, that’s just a regular, not-ludicrously-wealthy  person, who relies on sales and commissions to earn a living.  That money could be the difference between them buying groceries next week, or having to have a glass of water for dinner for a few days.

The moral of the story:

Support small artists and small businesses!

The only viable replacement for copyright laws that both allows artists to spend time Making Art and also allows you to make all the copies you want, is socialism.  You just can’t have it both ways under capitalism.  It doesn’t work.

This, by the way, is also a reason I support a Universal Basic Income:  so that art theft doesn’t prevent independent artists from being able to do what they love full time, because their survival doesn’t depend on selling prints or drawing commissions for That One Guy who wants art of his unusual, weirdly-specific fetish that the artist REALLY isn’t into but hey, he’s shelling out $300 for it and money is money.

Also, if you remove an artist’s watermark to repost their art somewhere else, you’re both an art thief and a huge asshole.  Don’t do that.

End of transcription.]

#art theft #copyright

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Michael in the Mainstream: The Dark Knight Trilogy & Its Negative Impact on the Superhero Genre

Superhero movies have come a very long way in the past couple of decades, cementing themselves as a genre unto themselves rather than the odd action movie here or there. Almost every year a few new ones of varying quality pop up that incite equal parts excitement and derision. It’s definitely a genre people feel very strongly about, but even people who tend to not love superhero films will admit that Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy is fantastic.

From 2005 until 2012, Nolan reinvisioned Batman in a way that grounded the character in reality. There’s no fantastical elements, there’s no insane science, there’s no superpowers… Everything in these films could happen in the real world. In a post-Batman & Robin world, this was seen as a breath of fresh air, and the critics loved it. In particular, The Dark Knight helped to usher in the modern age of superhero films, releasing the same year the MCU kicked off and widely being hailed as one of the greatest films of all time. That’s right, not even superhero films, films period. These films were impressive, groundbreaking, and… they fundamentally ruined superhero movies for quite a while.

Look, I don’t particularly hate these films. I think all of them are pretty good, in their own ways. But they have a lot of glaring issues that really hamper them a fair bit and yet, somehow, they became the blueprint that studios decided to look at for what they thought a successful superhero movie should be. Nolan’s films are serious, brooding, dark, and lack the whimsy and creative insanity that makes comics such a fun and engaging medium, and I think this right here is what has hurt comic book movies the most over the past decade. These are films that feel absolutely ashamed to be comic book movies, and they desperately want to seem like they’re “mature” and for “adults.” And, unfortunately for the rest of us, this shame translated over into a lot of other films, something we’re only just now recovering from.

Looking at the greatest strength of the trilogy shows this issue pretty well, that being the villains. Nolan’s films gave us truly iconic portrayals of characters like Bane, Joker, and Scarecrow, and you’re not gonna hear me say much bad about them. Cillian Murphy, Liam Neeson, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Aaron Eckhart, and Heath Ledger all do fantastic jobs as the insidious rogues of Batman. But the issue I have is that by grounding these characters in a realistic setting like this, it kind of misses the point. Joker isn’t using exploding cakes and laughing gas, Ra’s al Ghul isn’t an immortal warrior, Bane isn’t a drugged-up super soldier… They’re all just Guys. They’re Guys With Gimmicks, yes, but at the end of the day they aren’t what should be looked at as the be-all, end-all of the character’s portrayals.

And yet everyone acts like no one should ever play Joker again, because Heath Ledger’s Joker was just so good, guys! And he was good, but I don’t think Ledger’s Joker should be the absolute final Joker ever. Quite frankly, I prefer Phoenix’s Joker, because even if that version is also in a rather grounded film missing the overt weirdness of comics for the most part, he still dresses in a colorful costume, acts weird, tells jokes, and is in general more Jokery. Out of all of these villains, I think Bane and Scarecrow at least come within the ballpark of being close to how they should be, but Scarecrow is horribly underutilized and Bane is given a rather undignified sendoff.

Then there are the bigger issues. Batman himself is really downplayed throughout the trilogy, getting fairly little screentime compared to villains and side characters. This was a huge point of contention when The Dark Knight Rises came out, with most of the film featuring Bruce Wayne, and in hindsight it highlights how unwilling Nolan was to engage with the comic book trappings of what he was adapting. I like Christian Bale a lot, he’s a great actor, but I don’t think he really carries any of the films; in fact, it’s usually the villains carrying the movies. Bale is certainly not as bad as Val Kilmer in the role of Wayne/Batman, but he’s no Keaton, he’s no Clooney, he’s not even an Affleck. A lot of the time, he also just feels like… a Guy. And Batman should not ever, ever just be a Guy.

But perhaps the most egregious fault of the films is what it did to Gotham City itself. In Burton’s films, you really get a feel for the Gothic atmosphere of the city with how it’s designed, and this goes for Batman: The Animated Series too. And even the more cartoonish, colorful Gotham of Schumacher’s films pops and leaves an impact. But Nolan’s Gotham? It’s very much just a City. There is nothing distinct about Nolan’s Gotham, it’s literally just a generic city, and if you even have the faintest knowledge of Batman you will know that Gotham is not just a city. Gotham is pretty much a character itself, a dark, imposing landscape in which Batman does battle with his costumed foes. Every other adaptation I can think of knows to make Gotham feel unique and distinct, but this one just absolutely drops the ball. You might as well just have the city be New York if you’re going to put no effort into giving it personality.

And that all brings me to this: every reviled superhero movie of the past decade, from F4ntastic to The Amazing Spider-Man to Dawn of Justice, all have their genesis in Nolan’s trilogy. He laid the groundwork for these films to exist, and a large majority of the blame needs to be put on Nolan for sapping the fun out of comic book movies. Now, to be totally fair to Nolan, he’s not entirely responsible for what happened to the comic book film landscape; prior to him, the X-Men film series was giving all of the heroes dark costumes and being a bit more serious. But despite those films playing a bit of a part, there’s one major reason I don’t fault them nearly as much: The X-Men films never once felt ashamed to be comic book movies.

You have to understand, people loved grit and edginess in the 90s and had just violently rejected Batman & Robin a few years prior to the original X-Men film, so it’s hard to really fault it for wanting to avoid being too campy. But much like Blade, the films never tried to act like they weren’t still crazy comic book films. Scott still has eye lasers, Mystique is still blue, Nightcrawler looks like a demon, there are Sentinels and Apocalypse and even Dazzler shows up at one point! The X-Men franchise wasn’t always good, but it managed to balance between being silly and taking itself seriously pretty well for the most part. Magneto is still a Holocaust survivor, his relationship with Xavier still has impact, there are still emotional moments here and there, but then you also have Deadpool movies and the multiple comic book style retcons to the timeline that leave the continuity a mess, and something about that just feels right. And all that makes Logan less egregious despite being the sort of brooding, angsty superhero drama Nolan would make, because even if it is those things, it still centers around a dude with metal claws coming out of his hands trying to stop his best friend from wiping out everyone with psychic seizures. Nolan could never make this superhero film.

Nolan’s films, on the other hand, did. These films did not feel like they wanted to be comic book movies, they felt like they wanted to be serious crime films but Nolan was stuck with Batman so he just mashed the two together. And honestly, I’d probably be more forgiving if it weren’t for the hugely negative impact these films and their critical success had on the superhero genre even until this day. The first decade of superhero films as a major contender in cinema were colored by these films. People outright balked at silliness in superhero movies for quite some time, with a lot of criticism levied at the early phases of the MCU for being too goofy; in fact, at times it seemed as if the MCU was going a bit too far in the goofy direction without striking the proper balance, with films like Age of Ultron having most of its tension defused by constant wisecracks. And on the DC side, Nolan’s grounded approach lead to Zack Snyder’s flaccid filmmaking with dark coloration, moody atmosphere, and not a shred of joy to be found. Nolan is essentially the peak of dark, grounded superhero films, and Snyder is the nadir, but Snyder’s awful DC films wouldn’t exist if not for Nolan.

It was a slow crawl getting to what superhero movies should be. Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man were films tossed out only when Marvel was certain they could take risks, because absurd concepts like those would just not have been able to survive if not for years of good will beforehand. That’s not even getting into some of the more bonkers elements of later films, such as Ego the Living Planet and basically everything about Doctor Strange. In fact, Doctor Strange, for all its issues, is still a massive step forward for a genre that outright rejected magic for a long time, instead for a time turning Thor and his costars into a cast of hyper-advanced aliens, with later films having to clarify that there is magic and zombies and so on. The recent WandaVision was able to further clarify this by making Wanda unambiguously magic and not an evil Nazi science experiment.

Superhero animation didn’t suffer quite so much, but that’s mostly because, much like comics, animation is still seen as “kid’s stuff” by way too many people. And even then, they didn’t escape the shadow of Nolan totally unscathed; one need only look into the infamous Bat Embargo, which limited Batman villains so there could only be one given incarnation of said character in media. For instance, the Scarecrow being in Batman Begins meant he could not appear in the animated series The Batman. This lead to such things as no Batman characters appearing in Justice League Unlimited. It was truly a stupidly frustrating time to be a Batman fan when some of his most iconic foes were relegated to only certain appearances because it “might confuse kids.”

Let me again clarify this: I mostly like the Nolan films. I usually like Nolan, though he has become unbearably, obnoxiously pretentious these days. I think a lot of elements of them are great, I feel like they mostly have strong villains, and I don’t disagree that The Dark Knight is a fantastic film. But the thing is these are only good as AU stories, as their own thing; they should not be the template every superhero movie should follow, or any superhero movie for that matter, because they lack the ability to engage with the things that make people love comics in the first place. People love wacky, off-the-wall concepts, superpowered aliens, magic, talking animals, evil living planets, alcoholic ducks, and all that fun stuff.

People desperately want the fun, camp, and wacky stuff back in comic book films, as the success of the goofier DC films like Aquaman, Shazam, and Birds of Prey as well as the success of shows like Doom Patrol in comparison to the critical and audience revulsion of Snyder’s films, with Shazam in particular giving us such bonkers concepts as an entire family of superpowered children and Mr. Mind, the evil alien caterpillar. Thor: Ragnarok and the Guardians of the Galaxy films have become some of the most beloved MCU movies despite being weird, wacky, and wholly embracing the joy of comics to the point the latter films feature Howard the Duck and the aforementioned Ego alongside bizarre characters like Rocket Raccoon, Groot, and Taserface. And the thing with all of these films is that they’re able to balance the weirdness and wackiness of comics without losing sight of human emotion, moving storytelling, and drama. They’re both fun and deep, goofy and yet meaningful. This is what comics are, and what they should be, and anyone who thinks comics should be grim and gritty really needs to think about why they think an entire genre needs to be colored in with only the dullest colors.

I think what I’m trying to say here is this: Make a Detective Chimp movie, you cowards.

#Michael in the Mainstream #mitm #review #movie review #the dark knight trilog #the dark knight #batman begin #the dark knight rises #superhero movie #christopher nolan #DC

[elk-ambrose-scott-writing]

Top Five Favourite Classic Books

Genre: Adventure

Author: Jack London

When it was published: 1906

Plot in 20 words or less: Spicy good doggo lives rough life, wolves eat everything, and eventually someone manages to pet doggo.

“Normal For The Times” Factor: Racism, in text and in Jack London’s personal views (see the link at the bottom for the full post and explanation of what those messed up views are)

Why it’s awesome: 

White Fang is one of the first classic books I sought out and read as a younger adult. 

While the graphic animal death isn’t for everyone, I really enjoyed seeing everything from White Fang’s point of view, and I found him to be an interesting character to see the world of the Yukon through.

I was drawn in by the horror elements to the introduction, and the more realistic view of nature that other animal POV books I’d read (much love to the Warrior Cats series but they aren’t realistic AT ALL) didn’t have. It felt, to me, like an animal book written for those who wanted to learn about animals. 

It was paced well, it was written well, and I really, really enjoyed the ending. 

Genre: Tragedy

Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald

When it was published: 1925

Plot in 20 words or less: Friendly chap meets his cousin’s ex and dude’s got mad money and great people skills, both lead to his downfall

“Normal For The Times” Factor: Character expresses challenged racism, negative stereotypes about Jewish people (proof in full post)

Why it’s awesome: 

The Great Gatsby feels like a fly stuck in amber; it cannot exist outside of the time period it’s in, and it’s one of the most fascinating times in history. 

I was hooked from the first sentence.

I connected with Nick, though the character I was drawn to the most was, of course, Jay Gatsby. I adored him. I didn’t see what he saw in Daisy and I kind of wanted her to quietly leave the novel and never return, but I also see that Gatsby and Daisy were both flawed people. 

It’s a well-written book with excellent characters, and it is a slice of history that deserves it’s timelessness.

Genre: Comedy, tragedy, mostly a social commentary

Author: Miguel de Cervantes

When it was published: 1605 (for the first part)

Plot in 20 words or less: A man from La Mancha has a midlife crisis and decides reality is overrated and becomes a “knight”

“Normal For The Times” Factor: Written in old Spanish, and translated from old Spanish, so some of the phrases are a bit dated. Pretty sure de Cervantes was not a racist or sexist dude, but he’s also been dead for like 300 years. 

Why it’s awesome: 

Don Quioxote is the second most translated book ever, after the freaking Bible, so you know it’s gotta be good. 

It’s like the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure of literature; once you read it, you see tributes and references to it EVERYWHERE. 

While it is a tragedy and a portrayal of Spanish society at the time, it’s also freaking hilarious, which makes the tragedy hit all the harder.

I don’t know if I agree with scholars who say it’s the greatest work of literature, but it’s definitely one of the best. 

If you haven’t read it I’d recommend trying it, but make sure you get a good translation because the book is originally in Spanish. If you don’t want to read this long book, see if you can find a recording of “The Man of La Mancha”, the musical play I mentioned. It’s also excellent!

Genre: Horror, Science Fiction (The first of it’s kind, the OG scifi novel)

Author: Mary Shelley

When it was published: 1818

Plot in 20 words or less: Man creates monster, decides to be a deadbeat parent, comes to regret it

“Normal For The Times” Factor: None, except for the way the novel is written which is different from how we use language now. Mary Shelley was fucking badass and had awesome parents.  

Why it’s awesome: 

Even before I’d read the book, I knew the basic gist of the story, and I knew some of the famous lines from the 1930’s motion picture.

When I read the book I fell in love. It’s much different from the movie, which I don’t understand, and so far there hasn’t been many mainstream movies that capture the greatness of this work. 

Pop culture leaves a lot to be desired, including perpetuating the idea that the Creature is called Frankenstein. Ugh. 

I could go on and on, but I will sum it up with this quote from Tumblr: knowledge is knowing that Frankenstein is not the monster. Wisdom is knowing that Frankenstein is the monster.

Back to the great book. And it is great. Not only is it the first science fiction novel, it is also an examination of science, of society, and of the consequences of abuses of both.

It is a classic because the themes of alienation and of science without morality is still so relevant today. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is an example of all the best parts of sci-fi, and if you haven’t read it, do so. Then join me in ranting about how the movies got most of it wrong.

Genre: Science Fiction

Author: H. G. Wells

When it was published: 1898

Plot in 20 words or less: The Martians are coming, it’s definitely a metaphor for something, cough on aliens to save the world

“Normal For The Times” Factor: H. G. Wells was an anti-Semitic eugenicist, so there’s that 

Why it’s awesome: 

This book is the quintessential science fiction novel, as famous as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. 

It’s narrated by a nameless man living in London, and the whole book details the arrival of Martians, his perilous escape from them, and the world under the Martians and their eventual defeat via germs.

I personally found the narrative very tense, despite the old-timey language, and I enjoyed the suspense I was in despite knowing how the whole thing ended. 

This one, like Frankenstein, doesn’t have a movie adaptation exactly like the book, as it keeps getting updated for the era the movie is in. Unlike Frankenstein, that doesn’t take away from the book. While the book is tense and well-written, the main character is just kind of there. 

The whole book is used to illustrate why colonialism is really bad to England, which I personally enjoy because it’s hilarious how they didn’t get it, though Wells seemed to not really understand himself the depth of the way England tried to wipe out entire cultures. It was more than just diseases. CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for the uninitiated) recently started broadcasting the Australian adaptation of this story, and I’m looking forward to watching it. he novel isn’t for everyone, but it was a good introduction to scifi for tiny Elka, and is a good example of the genre.

Full Post Here: https://wordpress.com/post/elkascott.wordpress.com/1498

#classic books #books #book review #top five list #war of the worlds #mary shelly's frankenstein #frankenstein #white fang #h g wells #h g wells sucked total balls #mary shelley #jack london #jack london was super racist #don quijote de la mancha #don quixote #miguel de cervantes #mary shelley is badass af #the great gatsby #f scott fitzgerald #jay deserved better #jay gatsby #gatsby deserved better